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A blog for educators and parents of teenage girls…

The idea of the Butterfly Effect comes from the science of chaos theory. It suggests that everything is connected, to the extent that the beating of a butterfly's wings in one part of the world may ultimately contribute to a tornado happening in another part of the world.
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You may also buy my books, "The Butterfly Effect", "The Girl With The Butterfly Tattoo", "Loveability an Empowered Girl’s Guide to Dating and Relationships" and "Gratitude – A positive new approach to raising thankful kids".

Dismiss boy band teen crush at your peril

Frankly, I think it is very cool that on Monday of this week, when the rest of the nation was discussing political machinations, I managed to get teen romance on the agenda. In fact, The SMH profiled my Opinion piece as part of its “Editor’s Choice” feature. I thought I’d share it with you all here too. This was originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald, February 27th.

My Twitter feed was aflutter recently with a firm consensus about which way this country should be heading. Forget KRudd. There is, apparently, only One Direction.

Because I work with thousands of teenage girls every year and follow many online, I was privy to some revealing outpourings of devotion for this squeaky clean British-Irish boy band after they announced an Australian tour. “Don’t ask me to stop loving One Direction as that would be like stopping breathing,” said one. “I. AM. CRYING.” wrote another.

Then it got personal. My usually sensible 12-year-old daughter tried to explain to me that I should have stayed home on Friday to repeatedly call a radio station ticket competition for her. I say “tried to explain” because she actually burst into tears and could only whimper, “I just love them.” (Her usually unsympathetic little brother was so shocked, he declared he’d miss school to try to win tickets.)
Teen crushes are nothing new. I fell prey to the allure of the Construction Worker from the Village People, Ace Frehley from Kiss and David Bowie (it seems I unwittingly lusted after sexually ambiguous men in costumes).

And as tempting as it is to dismiss these outpourings of emotion, we do so at our own peril. Just ask Channel Seven, which almost had a riot on its hands when it underestimated the appeal of Justin Bieber and had to cancel his free concert. Grant Denyer said at the time, ”We just couldn’t have foreseen this scale and Sunrise hired the best security you could imagine, we hired the professionals who look after U2, Coldplay, Pink, the big acts, and even they weren’t equipped and just couldn’t handle the Bieber fever.”

The fever actually has its origins in a physical reality. The frontal lobes of teenagers are not yet fully developed. In other words, teenager’s brains are all tuned up for emotions, fighting, running away and romance.

From the Beatles to Bieber and ”1D”, it seems the more squeaky clean-cut and sexually harmless the object of desire, the more heightened the passions – precisely because the risk of the object of the affection actually posing any sexual threat is minimal. For once, teen girls feel sexually in control. They call the shots. And there is no risk of rejection.

One Direction are particularly clever at tapping into this psyche. Their big hit was What Makes You Beautiful. The lyrics include, “You’re insecure, don’t know what for. You’re turning heads when you walk through the door. Don’t need make-up to cover up. Being the way that you are is enough.”

These words sing to a generation of girls exhausted by body image angst fuelled by a plethora of air brushed images of impossible perfection. They sing too to girls tired of being dished up a diet of singers who literally slap women up (I’m talking to you, Chris Brown) and others who revel in calling them ”bitches”.

Rather than belittle, we should empathise with how very real and raw these new emotions are, just like the mother of one of my teen girl friends. “Mums so cute,” the girl said online, ”when 1D came on [TV] she said, Stop screaming & listen to your boys! LOL.”

This mum is far more likely to have her daughter open up about other confusing elements of her tumultuous teen life and include her in her emerging romantic world. The mothers who went along with their daughters to pine after Edward and Jacob, the supernatural lust objects of the Twilight franchise, realised this too.

And let’s not forget crushes have always been a vital way of bonding. Beatlemania, the Kiss Army, One Directioners, Twihards: crushes are about sharing the love. Parents probably won’t be welcome on the frontline by their daughter’s side at the concerts (no one wants their parents to see them in a state of unbridled lust surely?) but can play a vital role as part of the support crew.

As one tweeter said: “Dear parents, I’m obsessed with One Direction & not drugs and alcohol. In other words, you should be thankful for them.”

One Comment

Esmari Oosthuizen

Thank you once again for being so open and honest about what our girls are experiencing in this day and age and the reality check that goes with it.
I train a sport aerobic team at my school and heaven forbid I put on a 1D song to warm up on, I lose them altogether until the end of the song! I can just sit back and laugh and enjoy their reaction to this band as I remember my boyband crushes too.
My 14 year old daughter was very blessed this morning to actually acquire concert tickets in Melbourne, and I am very happy that this will be her first live band experience. Even if some of her so-called fake friends tell her she is not “deserving” of the tickets. There is always the ugly side of obsession to these celebrity crushes. Then again, all she really cares about is going and having fun and yes, scream and share this experience with her best friend.
I will be there with hordes of other mums doing the late night pick-up and having to listen to my girl swoon over a band , but hey, better that than picking her up drunk at a party or worse, a hospital.